(UK) Slough Council: "Number of children with special needs is increasing"

June 20, 2025, Slough Observer: New classrooms for Arbour Vale in Slough won't be open by September 

https://www.sloughobserver.co.uk/news/25256599.new-classrooms-arbour-vale-slough-wont-open-september/  

SE  England

New classrooms for Arbour Vale special school won’t be ready for the start of the school year, a Slough council education boss has confirmed.

Council leaders agreed on Monday, June 16, to open a satellite site for Arbour Vale at Our Lady of Peace school on Derwent Drive for the coming school year.

But two days later the council’s associate director of education Neil Hoskinson told headteachers the new classrooms wouldn’t be ready to use until January ‘at the earliest’.

He said this was because talks with the Northampton Catholic Diocese, which runs Our Lady Of Peace, had become ‘very messy’.

Under plans approved by Slough Borough Council leaders, around 40 Arbour Vale pupils will be taught next year at classrooms in what is currently Our Lady of Peace’s junior block.

Our Lady of Peace would consolidate into its infant block where the council says it can be accommodated due to falling pupil numbers.

Slough Borough Council says it needs the expansion as the number of children with special educational needs is increasing.

It says that without this, more of those pupils would need to be sent to special schools outside of the borough.

Speaking as council leaders approved the plans on Monday, Mr Hoskinson said the expansion was ‘very different to last year’ when council leaders approved an urgent plan to build temporary classrooms at Arbour Vale.

He said the ‘opportunity’ to open an Arbour Value satellite at Our Lady of Peace was ‘too good to miss’ as a move that would provide extra spaces at good value.

Mr Hoskinson said: “This wasn’t a panic, ‘we’ve got to do something’. This was just something that’s come up.”

A council spokesperson also told the Observer that although discussions were ongoing with the Diocese, it expected an agreement 'imminently'.

However speaking to headteachers at a schools forum meeting on Wednesday, June 18, Mr Hoskinson revealed that the satellite would not be open by the new school year in September.

He said: “The hope was that we could get the young people in by September.

“We’re not going to be able to do that – it’s going to be January before Our Lady is going to be ready at the earliest.”

He added: “It’s got very messy with the diocese, agreeing the lease – that’s all I can tell you.”

Mr Hoskinson said the council had found another solution with a different school, but that he wasn’t able to say what the solution was until it had been signed off by a headteacher.

He said: “I’m not going to try and pretend it’s something other than it is here.

“Unfortunately the possibility of Our Lady being open in September meant we weren’t working on the other solutions as early as we would have done if we had known.

“The fact we’ve had this great solution meant we put all our eggs in one basket and then when it turned out it’s not ready in time, it’s not ideal.”